Salomon Herman de Man

Better known in Holland as Herman de Man, the famous Dutch author.

His early life as a sensitive Jewish boy, compounded by his parent's unhappy marriage, helped shape his novels along with childhood trips to the rural Lopikerwaard region, where he and his father sold various merchandise to ease their financial hardship. Bright and observant as a child, Sallie soon became critical, rebellious and anti-social, developing socialist and anarchist views. An ardent pacifist, he was jailed for two years for refusing military service in 1918.

On release, he was implicated in a fraud scandal at Dordrecht and fled to Belgium where he became a journalist. Whilst in Brussels, he became the editor of Het Laatste Nieuws (The Latest News) using his new pseudonym of Herman de Man. When he returned to Holland in late 1921, he was promptly arrested.

After two months in prison at Scheveningen, he decided to stay on the straight and narrow and concentrate on his writing. He worked for the Dagblad van Gouda newspaper (Gouda Daily) before joining the Vaz Dias news agency in The Hague where he met his Jewish wife, Eva. He enjoyed great success as a novelist, especially with 1925's Het Wassende Water (Rising Waters) which won the 1927 CW van der Hoogt literary prize and was later turned into a 8 part NCRV programme for Dutch TV in 1986, watched by an audience of 6 million.

In 1927, he followed his wife and five of the children into the Catholic faith. No one knows why but he didn't completely abandon his Jewish past, writing a pamphlet in 1933 when Hitler came to power, highlighting the dangers of anti-semitism. Prior to WWII, he was living in a "writer's hut" in the French Alps before leaving for Portugal and London where he worked for the Government Information Service and Radio Orange. Whilst in London, he had his name officially changed to De Man. Following an argument with his superiors, he was transferred to Curaçao, the remote Dutch island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast, where he had a show on local radio.

Conflicts arose when he opposed the discrimination of the indigenous population so he returned to Holland in August of 1945 to find the country completely battered by war. He'd been unaware his wife and five of the children had been killed at Auschwitz, which depressed him so much he was unable to write. Herman took the two surviving children, Mary and Joseph, to Eindhoven to try to rebuild his life, taking up a job as a car salesman. It was short lived, on the 14th of November 1946, he was on a KLM plane from Croydon airport, London which crashed on landing at Schipol airport, killing all 21 passengers and 5 crew members.

• He has a motorway suspension bridge on the A50 crossing the Waal at Ewijk named after him: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_de_Man_brug
• The Hamburger family lived in a grand mansion named 'Huize Vredendaal' in Berlicum. On 2 August 1942 the occupying force invaded the house of the Hamburger family. In Berlicum there is a small monument for the Hamburger children. From Joods Monument

Marriage: http://www.genlias.nl/en/searchDetail.jsp?val=40&xtr=24643481&vgr=5

Kind Salomon Herman Hamburger Geboortedatum 11-07-1898 Geboorteplaats Woerden Geslacht Man Vader Herman Salomon Hamburger Moeder Sara Cohen Schavrien Gebeurtenis Geboorte Datum 11-07-1898 Gebeurtenisplaats Woerden Bij Koninklijk Besluit van 09-09-1943 is aan Salomon Herman Hamburger, toegestaan voor zich en zijne minderjarige wettige nakomelingen de geslachtsnaam Hamburger te veranderen in " Man".